Saturday, October 11, 2008

It's NOT as Easy as Riding a Bike

Somehow I managed to make it through this past week in one piece...though I do have numerous bruises, cuts, and swollen joints. And let's just say I have a whole new respect for stairs. While I was by far the worst one in the class, I did enjoy some parts of the Officer Mountain Bike class. We definitetely did some cool stuff that I never thought I'd be able to do, like riding up and down stairs, doing a track stand, and completing the dreaded"M" course (which more or less consisted of riding your bike along the lines of two parking spaces in the shape of an "M"). The last day was by far the best day, though. The ten of us in the class and the two instructors rode 12 miles out to the local police range where we proceeded to do several drills involving our bikes and shooting. We simulated scenarios where we had fallen off our bikes and had to shoot at a suspect. Then we ran a course that requried us to slalom uphill, drop our bikes, and then complete a course of fire that consisted of shooting from behind various covers while standing, kneeling, and laying prone. At the end of the course was a simulated hallway where we got to empty our magazines on the target at the end of the hallway....very cool. After all that, we rode the 12 miles back to the department.

The entire week was draining physically and mentally. Though, it didn't take as much a toll on my workouts as I'd thought. Naturally, I didn't set the world on fire with my leg workouts, but I still managed to see some increased strength this week during some of my other workouts, especially back. Today's weigh-in was 140.2 (up 3 pounds), which continues to leave me scratching my head trying to get a baseline for my weight. I can't seem to stay consistent, and I don't know what the issue is. The Homeslice and I have put together a new diet for me to try out for the next couple of weeks. It's not all that different from what I've been doing, but it includes an extra 30 minutes of cardio immediately after my Saturday morning workout and a high carb meal of oatmeal, honey, molasses, PB, and some whey following that. This will hopefully provide me with a little extra stored energy for the subsequent workouts that week without taking in too many carbs on a daily basis. He's always all about experimenting and testing things out, which is a good thing. Because if it was up to me, I'd follow the same thing for the entire f'ing off season and make no progress.

Anyway, now that bike school's over, I can get back to putting all my energy into my own workouts and hopefully get on track to make some consistent progress.